A New Voice (Revised Version)
by amyownfie
Summary: Isabel Hastings isn't human, though she doesn't know what she is. All she knows is that there is a limitless amount of information inside of her head that could help the ongoing war against Baal. Meanwhile, things between Sam and Jack have changed, irreversibly, and there is nothing they can do but hide it from the people around them and hope they never get found out. (set mid s8)
1. Chapter 1

Bbbbrrrrrrnnnnngggg.

"Yeah, fuck you too." She mumbled, reluctantly pulling her arm from her covers.

Bbbbrrrrrrnnnnngggg!

With a grumble, she fumbled her hand across her night stand until she found her alarm and turned it off, only for it not to be her alarm. She opened an eye and spotted the time, 6:15. "Hey, good morning Isabel." She muttered, sluggishly getting out of bed. "I know you were at work until 3 last night but I'm going to ignore that fact and not turn my alarm off so that you can actually get some sleep before class."

She pulled a shirt over her head and trudged to the kitchen. A humming drifted into her ears, accompanied by the poorly sung lyrics. 'I love you baby… quite alright… need you baby… my lonely nights…'

"Good morning Maria." She called out, her voice monotone.

"I swear I remembered this time." She yelled, emerging from her room all decked out for her morning trip to the gym. "But Zac came by just after nine, something about you leaving him on campus…"

"And you were floored by his 2 facial hairs, weedy frame and the glow in his eyes whenever he mentions nuclear fission." Isabel deadpanned, putting some coffee in the maker she'd saved up for.

"He said that there's a last minute guest lecture at 8, so I turned my alarm back on." Maria rolled her eyes at me and threw an envelope onto the counter next to her. "And this was delivered." She smiled at her knowingly before dashing out of our apartment.

With heavy limbs, Isabel picked up the envelope, turning it over to see the return address. Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs. She placed the letter back on the counter, tapping it nervously. He usually emailed. They only sent letters when people were MIA... or worse.

"It's just a letter." She chanted, her hands shaking as she opened the envelope. "He's fine. He's gonna be fine." She pulled out the letter, pushing back the dread she was feeling. "_Miss I Hastings… emergency contact for Lieutenant Ryan Langley… Reply to confirm… _Asshole. Couldn't have warned me."

6:20. She had time to call him. He wouldn't usually be awake for another ten minutes but she figured he deserved it. He'd terrified her. She'd thought he was dead. It was completely justified to wake him up early for that. Or…

She grabbed a mug from the cupboard and poured herself some coffee. Or she could have breakfast and wake up first. She may have been annoyed, but her body hadn't quite caught up to her mind.

She proceeded to make some toast the 'old fashioned' way. Which was just the way they did it at one of her foster homes. It didn't take long for the grill to warm up, and not much longer for one side of her toast to have browned. Just as she flipped the slice over, her buzzer pierced the silence. She grabbed her coffee and made her way to the buzzer, pressing the listen button for a few moments, just to check that she couldn't hear some kid from another building running away giggling.

"Hastings and Rios Arenas residence." She spoke, trying to sound as awake as possible.

"I have an order here for a vegetarian pizza with a side of Zac." It was impossible not to laugh at the terrible Boston accent coming through the intercom.

"Come on up." She rolled her eyes, buzzing him in before going to check on her toast.

She began buttering it when a knock on the door once again interrupted her breakfast.

"I should just give you a key at this point." She called to the other side as she opened the door. Only Zac wasn't alone.

"Oh my god." She breathed, jumping into the arms of the blues clad man at her door.

"You're welcome." Zac joked, pushing past them into the apartment.

"What are you doing here?" She beamed, pressing a kiss to Ryan's lips. "Why didn't you warn me about the letter? I though something had happened to you."

"I'm escorting a superior." He smiled back, his arms still firmly around her waist. "And I am sorry about the letter, I wasn't expecting it to get to you that quickly."

"Hey, are you eating this?" Zac called over.

"Yes, I am." Isabel glanced at him, only to see him three bites in already. "Do you want breakfast?"

"Sure." He smiled, closing the door behind him as they made their way to the kitchen.

Isabel saved her coffee from Zac with a half-hearted glare, frowning slightly as she removed the last slices of bread from the bag. She ignored the anxious thoughts almost forcing their way into her mind. _'We don't have much time left… counting on some kids to suddenly want to join the Airforce?... Suppose we don't have anything better.'_ She tried to ignore the reflecting effect it had on her mood. She wasn't ready for him to know yet, wasn't sure if she ever would be.

"So I'm guessing it's your fault I had an early wake up call." She smiled, putting the bread slices onto the grill pan.

"Do you mean the lecture or the surprise arrival?" Ryan tilted his head to the side, placing his cap on the counter.

"I hadn't pegged the Air Force for rushed planners." Zac piped up. "I figured you had stuff like this planned months in advance."

"We were requested to speak, or rather my colleague was." Ryan answered, more cryptically than usual. "Usually, we don't speak anywhere, at least not the officers I serve under."

"Now I'm really interested." Zac beamed, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Are you looking for volunteers to go to space or something?"

'Or both.'

"Let's not interrogate him." Isabel narrowed her eyes at Zac, grabbing two plates to put the toast onto. "You steal enough of my food, I don't need you stealing my boyfriend."

"Unless he has a razor sharp wit like yours I don't know about, I'm not going anywhere." Ryan pressed a kiss to Isabel's cheek as he shuffled past her to get a mug.

"You don't have long do you?" Isabel frowned, her brows furrowing.

"I have to be on campus by 7." He frowned, taking a long sip of coffee to hide his expression. But Isabel had never needed to see his face to know what he was thinking.

"And it takes half an hour to get there on a good day." She finished, pulling some chopped fruit from the fridge, wordlessly offering some to Ryan, who declined.

"I figured a quick stop would be better than glancing at me across a lecture hall." He smiled sadly, taking my hand.

"As touching as this is, I'd love to know what the talk's gonna be about." Zac fished, his usual smile pulling his cheeks.

"Recruitment." Isabel rolled her eyes. "It's all they're ever about. You don't have to be on the football team to be a good addition to the military."

"I wasn't on the football team." Ryan shrugged, taking a bite of toast.

"Thank you for reminding me that lacrosse exists, the only sport worse than climbing up a rope in phys-ed." She laughed, nudging his shoulder.

"How long did you say it was until you could start your PhD?" He asked, pouring some coffee into his mug.

"A year or two." Isabel shrugged. "I'm things slow this time, two undergraduates in three years was kinda intense." She glanced up at the clock. 6:27. "You need to go if you want to make it on time." She held as plain an expression as possible, at least glad that Ryan was doing the same thing.

"We're on campus all day, I'll take you to lunch. And I'll see you next month. Right?" He asked, the hesitation in his voice clear. 'If I'm alive then…'

"Of course you will." She shook her head slightly, wrapping her arms around him. "I love you." She whispered.

"I love you too." He smiled, pressing a kiss to her forehead

"I love you most!" Zac yelled as Ryan left the apartment, laughing to himself as he did so. He tapped the side of his mug nervously, glancing between Isabel and its contents. She had her eyes tightly shut and a her fingers against her temples. "Have you told him yet?" He asked, keeping his eyes from locking with Isabel's.

"No. I haven't." Isabel stated, violently stabbing a piece of melon with a fork. "And you know why."

"All I know is that your creepy made up language has something to do with his job." Zac raised an eyebrow at her, repeating the argument he'd made many times. "Are you just going to wait until he stumbles upon it like I did?"

"I wouldn't call talking my notes without permission stumbling." Isabel pouted, her eyes fixed on the plate in front of her. "Sneak thief."

"But you know what I mean." He spoke, his tone becoming resigned. "You have to tell him before he finds out on his own. You can't try to protect him from something he knows nothing about."

"I'm not protecting him." She cut, dropping her fork to her plate. "I'm protecting me. I know enough about what he does to know that I don't want him finding out. He'd be legally obligated to tell his superiors."

"And of course you can't tell him that you're a mind reader either." Zac mocked.

"I know way too much that I shouldn't, what do you think happens to people who find out government secrets." She explained once again. "And I don't mind read. I hear thoughts. And only the ones you practically shout."

"So you don't steal people's test answers straight from their brains?" He joked, his fingers waggling in the air in front of his forehead.

"Like I said, I _hear_ thoughts. That's all." She rolled her eyes.

He took a deep breath, the smile fading from his face. "You can't keep it a secret forever."

"Watch me." She deadpanned, heading toward her room.

"No need to act like a six year old." Zac whined as she shut the door.

"I'm not." She yelled back. "I'm putting clothes on."

"Sure you are."

And sure she was, as a few minutes later she had a light dress on, perfect for the spring heat they'd been experiencing.

"Now I'd like to remind you that we have a lecture to be ready for and a sizeable test this afternoon." Isabel lightly grabbed Zac's shoulders and stood him up. "And I assume we have to stop by your place to get your stuff."

"You and your car are a godsend." Zac sighed, dashing over to the couch to grab Isabel's bag where it lay slumped.

"We're making a stop for some more coffee on the way." Isabel decided as a yawn hit.

"Ah coffee. The lifeblood of every college student." He proclaimed stoically, placing a hand over his heart.

"And everyone else." She rolled her eyes, chuckling at him. "Though apparently yours is whatever's in my fridge."


	2. Chapter 2

The lecture hall was buzzing as hosts of people joked and gossiped, theorised and argued, most of the seats having already been filled. There was almost a convenience in being the last people to a lecture, at least there was for Isabel and her keen vision, since the back seats were almost always vacant, though there were a few students dotted around, though they were desperately trying to stay awake. Zac slid into a seat near the isle, leaving her to take the space next to it, where anyone could look over her shoulder to see her frantically scribbling in an illegible text. She'd tried to teach Zac but that became almost impossible when he cold barely form the syllables that made up one of her more prominent languages. She glanced at her phone, 7:58. As tired as everyone was, nobody would be running in late, that was the one good thing about being surrounded by people all striving toward a doctorate, they all wanted to be there.

She pulled out her notebook, sketching away at a design, though this one was far different from the others. She frequently found herself writing with an alphabet completely different to her usual almost runic script. This was similar, but was more like a small grid, where blank spaces dictated the different letters. She didn't know how to explain it, but she could understand it. It was far more logical than the other language, with letters and syllables, not just representations of several different words or ideas that couldn't be deciphered on their own.

There'd always been a language barrier when it came to the science she was applying in the designs, there were completely different methods of the explaining the universe, and so there weren't the right words in another language to translate. If there were, she wouldn't be hiding her notebook from every footstep that reached her ears, whether passing her or not.

Isabel rubbed two fingers against her temple, pushing back the headache that had been steadily growing that morning. She knew exactly what the headaches and migraines meant, and she was not a fan of them. She couldn't explain how she suddenly found herself in another person's mind, speaking another person's words, experiencing their feelings and thoughts, especially when she would catch glimpses of the languages she had been since she first picked up a pen.

One of the matrons in the orphanage had helped her hide it from the other children and matrons alike, though she could tell the woman had been scared of her. Why wouldn't she be? A baby left abandoned on the orphanage steps suddenly starts writing in a language that would only be described as alien, demonic. It had left an awful itch in the back of Isabel's mind to force herself to write exclusively in English, especially when the right words were beyond her. It had taken years of practise to achieve, and a mere 2 days to break.

Zac cleared his throat and nudged Isabel with his elbow, pulling her attention to the woman stood at the podium. She was wearing dress blues, stood with perfect posture, her chin high as she smiled across the assembly.

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force." She began, looking every bit as serious as her rank would suggest. They'd never been spoken to by a Colonel. The odd Major and an abundance of Captains, but never a Colonel. "And before you raise your eyebrows at me I obtained my PhD in theoretical astrophysics before I became a pilot." She smiled slightly, apparently having expected a chuckle from the statement. "As you may have seen, Alec Colson claimed that he had proof that the government had been hiding the existence of alien life, a claim that was proven false."

Isabel couldn't resist scoffing at her claim, rolling her eyes. Several students nearby glanced back at her, all observing the spectacle that was a physics student that believed in aliens. And if she didn't know that for a fact, Isabel knew that she would have been those people.

"Our proof came in the presentation of a prototype device that could produce realistic holograms, down to the pores in a person's skin, the hairs on their arms…" She spoke, only for the same woman to appear from a door to the side of the lecture hall. "The perception of sound coming from within the hologram itself." She was grinning as she stood next to the hologram, clearly enjoying the murmurs of interested students. "It can even be programmed to present the image of something that shouldn't exist, like an alien."

Isabel hadn't been keeping up with the news, not having time between studying and working night shifts at a shady bar, but now she wished she had, because the hologram moved around the podium and suddenly assumed the form of something she'd only ever seen during one of her episodes. A small grey humanoid whose head was too big and body too lean. She could barely breathe.

As a rush of pain hit her, she gathered her things and dashed out of the back door of the auditorium, pretending to take an urgent phone call as she lifted her phone to her ear. Once she heard the door close behind her, she immediately leaned against the nearest wall she could find, desperately gulping at the air.

"It's not real." She shook her read, squeezing her eyes shut. "It's just a hologram, she proved that, no need to panic." She tried to convince herself.

She dropped her bag to the ground pressing her fingers to her temples as she tried to control her breathing. Her migraines had always been a constant in her life, gradually becoming more and more painful as the prelude to what she had taken to calling episodes, episodes that usually led to several days of frantically sketching out a new design, whatever they were for. Her last one had been several months ago, too long ago.

"Are you alright Isabel?" An aged voice queried, the voice of her professor, Albert Peterson.

"You know me and my migraines." She smiled half heartedly, her eyes still glued shut. With a wave of relief, the pain began to pass and her nausea subsided. Isabel opened her eyes slightly, noticing the scattered pages from her notebook, gathering them up as swiftly as she could before her professor could take a look.

"Why don't you head to my office, you can sit in peace for a while." He suggested, his face wrinkling further with his kind smile.

"I'll be fine to head back in a minute." Isabel shrugged, trying to hide the worry in her eyes as the pain started to return. _'Barely ten seconds… Fuck I need to get out of here.' _With a false smile and a quick nod, Isabel darted back into the lecture hall, ignoring the odd looks she received as she grabbed Zac's arm and dragged him back out of the room with her.

Zac barely had to look at her to know what was happening. "An episode's about to hit." He muttered, dragging her to the mostly unused classroom not too far from the lecture hall. He sat Isabel down at a table and began digging through her bag, placing a fresh notebook and pen in front of her, pulling out the video camera she kept on her for situations like this one. She didn't always remember all of her episodes, no matter how hard she tried. Filming them in their entirety was the only way she could fill in the blanks in her memory and make any semblance of sense out of whatever it was she scribbled down.

"Don't forget to lock the door." She breathed, eyes clamped shut, forehead against the tabletop.

"Of course not." Zac rolled his eyes, pulling a stool over to the table to set the camera on. He turned it on, rolling his eyes at it's usual slow start up. When it finally turned on, Isabel had already begun her scribblings, though she hadn't been saying anything yet, so there wouldn't be anything they missed.

As minutes ticked away, and an hour loomed close, Zac could already see a thick layer of sweat forming on Isabel's face and neck, an odd babbling escaping her lips, which he knew to be one of her languages. He paced back and forth, glancing out of the thin rectangular window in the door every now and then to make sure nobody came looking. Eventually, Zac took a seat, once an hour had become two, biting a nail as his gaze fixed on Isabel. He'd seen a lot of her episodes before, though the feeling of dread never faded after the first time, though he didn't try to touch her during an episode. He'd once attempted to wipe some of the sweat from her skin, which had only led to her clamping her hand around his wrist, snapping at him in words he didn't understand, and practically throwing him away from her. He'd also learned that she wouldn't eat or drink during an episode, and that a plate or glass usually got in her way. He simply had to wait until she pulled herself out.

When she finally broke from her episode, the sun was high in the sky and Zac was dozing in a chair, his feet up on a nearby table. Isabel felt as tired as he looked, shaking the buzzing feeling from her fingertips. Blinking heavily, she directed her attention to the camera set up in front of her. An angry red light blinked, and upon inspection of the small screen, it was about to run out of battery. She quickly stopped the recording and turned off the camera. She switched the battery out for her spare and tucked it back into her bag.

With a frown, she glanced over the almost full notebook, dreading fitting together the disjointed sketches over the coming weeks. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before, which was not a familiar feeling to her.

"What are you?" She muttered, flicking back through the pages until she fell on a double page covered in what looked to be the most complete drawing of the final design. "Pyramids?"


	3. Chapter 3

Isabel was certain she was slowly going crazy as she searched for everything she could find on a man named Daniel Jackson. She remembered coming across him once, though she couldn't pinpoint where. She did know that he had tried to convince the world that pyramids were related to aliens, something she had thought was interesting, but she'd never known anything more. Not until she found herself digging up issue after issue of archaeology magazines and any copy of his crazy sounding papers she could find. She was mostly undisturbed, however she did receive an odd look from the man she'd asked to direct her to wherever he kept copies of the work. She'd explained it away as wanting something to catch the attention of her professors in her theoretical physics paper. He didn't seem convinced.

It had been mere hours since her episode, and she wanted to be certain about her suspicions before she made any poor decisions. Like turning herself over to the military for no reason so she crammed herself between dusty shelves, attempting to read, make notes and search through several other issues all at once.

"So you think this isn't related to the others?" Zac asked, after sneaking her coffee into the campus library. "Do you have any theories?"

Isabel didn't speak, nor lift her eyes up from the paper she was reading, she instead shoved an already opened and discarded journal at him, the very one that had pushed Daniel Jackson from the world of academia.

"So this guy thought that aliens landed spaceships on the pyramids." Zac rolled his eyes. "And of course, because you know that some aliens exist, you think all of them do."

"I think it's better to keep an open mind all things considered." She frowned. "And this might not just be a coincidence." She pouted slightly, flipping through her notebook for the page that described the landing mechanism. She scribbled a few sentences from Dr Jackson's work in an empty corner, though it was odd to see english scribbled amongst a mess of alien text. The timing on her episode wasn't lost on her, how convenient it was that Ryan seemed to be worrying about some impending doom and here she was working on a design that seemed _very_ related. She just couldn't tell him about it, not without proof.

"I just can't shake the feeling that this is important." Isabel looked up at Zac, her eyes pleading to him. "And I need to work it out before he leaves."

"Or you could just take him what you have and let the air force work it out." Zac suggested with a shrug. "You and I get to walk free and those scientists our taxes pay can do the work."

"You walk free, not me." Isabel frowned, looking back down at the paper, biting her nail slightly. "The second I turn this over, I'm done. I'll be arrested, probably tried for stealing classified information and I'll spend the rest of my life being poked and prodded by some scientists. Which is providing that they still consider me an american citizen with the right to stand trial."

"Just this morning you were telling me that you weren't going to tell him." Zac pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her. "Why the sudden change?"

"I don't know." She pouted slightly, suddenly looking up at Zac in alarm. "But his break is in ten minutes and I have no idea what I'm going to tell him."

"The truth." Zac smiled, earning himself a scowl and a firm slap in the arm.

"You and I both know that the truth won't end well." She frowned, slipping a journal back onto its shelf.

"You don't have any other choice." Zac whispered harshly, finally gaining Isabel's full attention. "Give him the tapes, give him the notebooks and go do whatever it is to prevent that gnawing feeling in your gut. You don't have time to tiptoe around this, you said it yourself."

Isabel sighed, closing her notebook. She quickly shoved the journals back onto the shelf, clearly out of order, though she cared little about that. "I'll drive him over there, Maria won't be back till late so it should be relatively safe."

Zac seemed surprised. "You're actually listening to me?"

"For now." She shrugged. "I might change my mind soon." She tried to smile, chickle to herself, still too weighed down with dread.

Zac gently placed his hand on her arm. "We both know I can't force you into anything. You don't have to."

"But like we've both said," She smiled, shaking her head slightly. "I don't have any more time."

She drew a shaky breath, slipping past Zac with one last optimistic glance, as artificial as it was. She slowly walked her way toward the small coffee shop where Ryan would be meeting her, nervously fiddling with a corner of the notebook that had yet to leave her hands. She checked her phone. 12:02. He'd be there any minute.

She took another breath, closing her eyes as the warm sunlight danced across her skin. She had only actively listened for thoughts a few times before, mostly in her early teens, there were only so many times she could listen to people drooling over spanish teachers before she gave up. It was relatively easy to search for Ryan's mind, which was one of the few minds not preoccupied with science. She didn't dig too deep, barely skimming his surface thoughts, which were on the presentation. He was close.

Isabel briefly checked that none of the pages were sticking out of her notebook, she wanted him to find out on her terms, not by accident. She could see him walking closer, having not noticed her yet, with a small bouquet of flowers in his hand. She felt her stomach hollow even further. It felt as if she were betraying him, had already betrayed him, as he loomed ever closer. She was alien, she'd most likely come from outer space like some of the things she had seen in her episodes, in his mind. And she'd lied to him, repeatedly. Constantly hiding her episodes from him, especially when she had one while they were in the same state.

"Isabel." He called out, a smile on his lips. She waved him over, beginning the walk to her car when he got close. He jogged the last few steps, catching her elbow. "Where are you going? I though we were getting lunch on campus."

"There's something I need to show you." She frowned, chewing on her lip. She pulled her arm out of his loose grip and continued the walk to her car, though she was almost running.

Ryan sighed as he kept pace with her. "I don't have the time to get to your apartment and back."

"Trust me when I say that your superiors are going to prefer that you saw this." She wrenched her car door open, her haste starting to worry Ryan.

He didn't bother opening the door and instead jumped straight in, pulling on his seat be;t as quickly as possible. "If there's something wrong I'd prefer that you tell me instead of running me around LA."

"Telling you will sound crazy, showing you is easier." Isabel dismissed, handing him her bag. "Take out the video camera and watch the tapes." She pulled out of the parking lot with as much haste as she could, just glad that traffic wasn't as manic in the mid morning as it had been when she'd left.

Ryan raised an eyebrow at her but did as she instructed, squinting at the screen in an attempt to see it in the sunlight. "Why did you get Zac to film you working?" He asked, dropping the camera to his lap.

"Keep watching." She instructed, speeding down the carpool lane.

Ryan seemed disgruntled. "Breaking the speed limit isn't going to make watching this any easier you know." He rolled his eyes, stuffing the camera back in his bag. "I can't hear a thing."

"Then I guess we have to wait until we get there." Isabel shrugged, taking as many short cuts as she knew.

"You're not making me any less worried." Ryan pointed out, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And I am really worried about you."

Isabel didn't respond, focused on getting to her apartment. When they reached the street she didn't bother pulling into the garage but instead pulled up outside, springing out of the car and through the door.

"Isabel." Ryan yelled after her, bringing her bag as she sped through the building and up the stairs to her door. By the time he made it up she was already moving boxes into the living room, all labeled with a few letters and numbers. One pile caught his attention. "What does SG mean?" He called to her, his panic rising.

"Small and grey." She explained, dropping one last pile into the room. "HI means human-ish and the new designation is FE, flashing eyes." Isabel took her bag from Ryan, taking the camera and notebook out of her bag. She took the tape out of her camera and secured it to the notebook with an elastic band. She scribbled FE01 on the white strip on the tape and on the cover of the notebook.

Ryan narrowed his eyes at the boxes, hesitantly opening one.

"The tapes record my episodes. Not all of them have been filmed but most." Isabel explained as he saw reams of paper, notebooks and tapes all collected together with elastic.

"Episodes?" He repeated, swallowing loudly. "I'll be honest I thought you were hiding another boyfriend from me."

"No." She smiled lightly, pulling out SG01, her first episode. "This was the first. I was ten, maybe younger. The matrons at the orphanage thought I was a hellchild and told me to make sure I hid this from the other kids in case whatever I had spread. One of them also told me I needed to repent to save any hope left for my soul to still go to heaven."

Ryan took the book from her. It was old and worn, the cover decorated with little pencil flowers. He opened up to a random page and froze, his hands shaking. He'd never personally seen the symbols, but he'd read enough mission reports to know that he was reading an alien language. "How the hell did you get this?"

"I don't know." Isabel shrugged, her eyes growing wet as Ryan's mind raced. "I get migranes before the episodes and sometimes I don't remember them, which is why I film them, but somehow all of this just exists in my head." She wiped her eyes quickly, letting Ryan process what she was saying. "I had no idea how to tell you any of this but I had an episode today after seeing the alien Colonel Carter demonstrated. This is their language." She pointed to the book in his hands. "I don't know what they're called, I barely even know what they are but I know they look like that."

Ryan closed the book, placing it on top of one of the piles. He turned to face Isabel, his expression emotionless and controlled. "Why are you telling me now?" He asked. "It's not just because of Colonel Carter's demonstration is it?"

"It triggered another episode." Isabel explained, showing him the newest book. She flicked through to the page she'd added Dr Jackson's notes to, the one with the pyramid. "I have never written in this language before and I have no idea how I know it. At first I though it was just one, and then I started writing in another. I barely know what this is but I know it's important."

He snapped the notebook shut and paced away from her, pulling out his phone. "I understand that I'm late Colonel but we have a situation here. I need a team at my location and another back on campus looking for Zachary Deichman, he was in the 8am presentation."

The person on the other end seemed to talk for a while, while Isabel concentrated on not snooping inside of Ryan's head. It wouldn't help her case. They talked back and forth a little before a blinding light flared and four armed men were stood in the apartment with them. Isabel remembered sketching out something similar a few years ago, though she wasn't sure. She would have assumed it wasn't, but she also wouldn't have expected to see one of her aliens in a lecture hall.

One of the men approached her where she was sat, cuffs in his hand. "Isabel Hastings you are now in the custody of the United States Air Force. While you still have your rights to remain silent and to fair treatment, you will not be permitted a phone call or a lawyer as your arrest pertains to a breach of National Security."

She stood and held out her hands, feeling surprisingly calm as she was cuffed and marched over to the boxes and the men tagging them. She took one last calming breath, glancing up at Ryan. He wasn't looking at her, in fact he seemed adamant not to. She felt like an idiot for ever having the delusion that her secret wouldn't rip them apart. It was inevitable. There was no appropriate time to tell someone you love a secret this big, nor was there a proper way to tell them.

The light flashed again and Isabel raised her hands to shield her eyes as she squeezed them shut, though the light didn't flare for very long. She was in a room alone. There was a table and two chairs. The walls were concrete, the door was most likely made of metal and there was no two way mirror like she'd always thought there would be whenever she was found out. She sat down in the chair facing the door and waited to see who would walk through when she realised that she hadn't even said hello to Ryan, hadn't taken his flowers and blushed when they exchanged I love you's. She sighed, running her hands over her face.

"I'm sorry." She muttered to no one, dropping her cuffed hands to the table top.


	4. Chapter 4

Isabel had been sitting in the room for hours. She hadn't moved from the chair, instead shuffling through the surface thoughts that buzzed around her. There'd been an itching in her chest since she'd arrived that was tugging at her. The direction was largely downward, but there were a few other pulls that moved around. She didn't like the sensation but could largely ignore it.

Zac had been brought in an hour after she had, though he hadn't waited long before anyone went in to interrogate him. He was in a room nearby, probably across the hall or down the hall. She'd mostly kept herself from listening in, though when they'd turned the conversation to her episodes, she'd slipped into Zac's mind to watch.

"It's the strangest thing a person can witness." He explained. "Your friend is still there, right in front of you but it's like she just can't hear you, or doesn't want to listen. She just draws and writes and draws and writes and it goes on for hours and the only thing you can do is watch and hope she doesn't pass out before she finishes."

"I assume there's a physical toll on her during the episodes then?" The interrogator asked, his face vaguely familiar.

Zach snorted, glancing away from the man. "She looks like hell. Pale, sweating, shaking. She's always running a fever after, weak like she hasn't eaten in days. The first time I saw her after an episode I thought she was dying."

The interrogator scribbled something down on the file in front of him, glancing up at Zac as he wrote. "Was there anything different about this one?"

"Everything about it was different." Zac shook his head. "First off, none of them ever start that soon, it usually takes hours, not minutes. There was a trigger this time, during Colonel Carter's lecture. That barely even gets into the fact it was a completely new language. Last time she started in a new one she was incoherent for days before and after. They had the matrons covering for her because she couldn't understand English let alone speak it."

"Is she usually able to translate what she's written?" The interrogator asked, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forward slightly.

"Yeah." Zac blinked at the interrogator a few times. "I mean not when she a kid but once she got the hang of it she could always translate it. When she started writing in that second language she said she always knew what it meant, she just didn't know what some of the words were in English. Even then it's mostly because she has no idea what some of the scientific principles are to us, she just knows them in that language."

"How well does she know them aside from that?" He asked, his stare never leaving Zac.

"They may as well be her first language." Zac looked the interrogator up and down, trying to sneak a peek at what he'd written.

"Thank you very much for your time." The interrogator said, suddenly standing from the table. "You'll be moved into one of the holding rooms until my superiors decide if you're a threat to Homeworld Security."

"Don't you mean Home_land_ security?" Zac asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Homeland." The interrogator repeated. "Right, my mistake."

Isabel left Zac's mind when the interrogator did, catching a glance of him as he walked past her door. She could feel her heart beating far too fast, still on an adrenaline high. She hadn't been worrying about her episode, instead worrying more about the situation as a whole, what she was and how she was going to explain being able to rifle though someone's brain at the smallest whim. Honesty was good, but delicacy was more important. She didn't want to be locked up and experimented on for the rest of her life and Zac hadn't said anything about her mind reading so she was in the clear for a while at least.

The door opening snapped her out of her thoughts as the interrogator Zac had seen walked in, still looking down at his file as he sat down. A two men walked in behind him, one carrying a weapon and the key to the handcuffs. He took them off of her wrist and left the room, but the second man remained where he was. Part of the tugging was pulling her toward him, the itching more incessant. Had he been in the room with Zac or was it just for her? The man was very muscular, startlingly so and had a gold tattoo on his forehead.

"What are you doing to me?" Isabel asked before the interrogator could open his mouth.

"We're going to talk to you and then we're going to talk to some other people and decide if you're a security risk." The interrogator smiled, flicking to the beginning of the report.

"I don't mean what are you going to do." Isabel corrected, turning her attention to the second man. "I mean, what is he doing to me right now?"

The interrogator looked up expectantly at the man. "I am doing nothing." He shrugged, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.

Isabel rolled her eyes, trying to push the itching feeling to the back of her mind again. "Just ask your questions." She glanced warily at the man before returning her attention to the interrogator.

"I assume you know who I am, or at least you know of me." He started, smiling up at her. "I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson, I believe you spent several hours digging into my research this morning." Isabel nodded, finally placing his face. It had been on the back of one of his books, though a few of the articles also had a stamp sized picture of him. "Let's start there." He pulled a photograph out of the file. "This is a page from your notebook labelled FE01, can you describe what you've written here?"

Isabel slid the photograph closer. It was the same page she'd shown Ryan. "It's a landing mechanism, which I'm sure you already know. Did you want me to translate the entire page or are you just wasting questions?"

Daniel narrowed his eyes. "Is there a limit to how many you'll answer?"

"No." Isabel shook her head. "I just mean you should already know what this is because I wrote part of your work on the page."

Daniel nodded, taking back the photograph. "We're just gauging what you are and aren't aware of from this last episode."

"Well I could probably translate the entire thing and piece together the schematics for you." Isabel shrugged, lacing her fingers together. "Though it'll probably take me a while to find some of the right words."

"Lo shree Jaffa?" The man second man asked.

"Kel nok shree Jaffa." Isabel responded immediately.

"Ka kek. Onak sha kree, shel Goa'uld?" The man took a step forward, his hands tensing at his sides.

"Teal'c, we know she's not Jaffa. She doesn't have a symbiote." Daniel stood, holding is arm out to Teal'c.

"And yet she speaks Goa'uld." Teal'c raised his eyebrow, not stepping back.

"Et Altertus etiam." Isabel raised her eyebrow back, interested to see if they knew that language too.

Daniel took a step between them holding his hands up. "Calm down Teal'c, we're not going to get answers if she can't talk."

"I will remove myself Daniel Jackson." Teal'c bowed his head and left the room, though the air was no less tense.

"I apologise for Teal'c." Daniel said, sitting back down. "He thought..."

"I know what he thought." Isabel frowned, a hardness in her eyes. She'd heard enough of his mind to know. "I mostly understand."

"Mostly?" Daniel asked as she sat back down.

"I know the Goa'uld language, but I don't know _about _the Goa'uld." Isabel explained. "It's like you only know definitions, I have no connotations for what they mean practically."

Daniel nodded, flipping through the report again. "So, you know what you designed but you don't know the context around the things you design. How they're manufactured, why they're made, who specifically is making them?"

Isabel narrowed her eyes slightly, quirking her head. "Are you saying I'm only copying something someone else made?"

"For the most part yes." Daniel looked up for a moment, pulling out two more photographs. "This is your schematic for the stargate," he slid the photograph of her notes over "and this is an actual stargate." The second photograph stunned her, though not because she didn't already know it existed, but because she'd never seen one. It was incredible.

"I realistically knew that some of these things exist, but I suppose what I meant is that I have been drawing things people are making now?" Isabel corrected, unable to avert her attention from the photograph.

"The last design you drew is of a Goa'uld Ha'tak that one of our enemies had begum constructing." Daniel said, keeping a close watch on Isabel to gauge her reaction.

Isabel dropped the photograph and snapped her gaze to Daniel's. "The Goa'uld are going to use it against you?"

Daniel shook his head slightly. "Against the entire planet."

Isabel leaned back in her chair slightly, her mind racing. "Why are you telling me this? You're supposed to be questioning me."

"Most of what we need to know was explained by your friend." Daniel took back the photos, noticing Isabel take one last longing look at the photo of the gate. "We're more concerned with what you can tell us about your latest episode and the ship you designed during it."

Isabel hesitated to respond for a moment. "I can't guarantee that I can tell you everything." She quickly continued before Daniel could respond. "I had that episode too quickly, learned a new language too quickly. I don't know if that knowledge is permanent or temporary but I'll do what I can for as long as I can. I knew when I told Ry-Lieutenant Langley about my episodes that I wasn't... that is I um..."

Daniel nodded. "You think you're going to be locked up for the rest of your life."

"I will never be able to go back to that apartment." Isabel sighed. "You can try to convince me otherwise because you think you need to keep me cooperative, but as long as I can figure out what the hell happened to me I can accept life imprisonment."

Daniel stood from the table, knocking on the door. "I don't think it'll come to that."

Isabel smiled sadly. "To each their own."


	5. Chapter 5

It hadn't been long before Isabel was moved to a larger room, though it was almost as bare. Two armed airmen watched her at all times and her hands were cuffed again. It had been rather difficult to work on piecing together the schematics with her hands stuck three inches apart at all times, especially when she was only allowed to work on paper, but she'd managed. Daniel had joined her to help translate the words she couldn't, though there were still a few that they couldn't find the right definition for. Colonel Carter had joined them at his request, managing to help with the translations, though only clarifying the scientific principles Daniel couldn't explain. Isabel had been slightly apprehensive of her help, given she'd indirectly triggered her last episode. She wasn't even sure if it was the same day, though she had considered looking.

"I could explain this in literally any other language." Isabel sighed, putting her pencil down. "I haven't nearly enough understanding of how Quantum Mechanics works to make any sense."

"Quantum Mechanics?" Sam asked, raising her eyebrows. "In the shield generator?"

"Yeah." Isabel shrugged. "I mean Quantum Field Theory isn't really the Alteran's style, but this is definitely something they made. I thought this was Goa'uld."

"The Goa'uld mostly scavenge their technology and implement whatever they can with their systems." Daniel explained. "Their technology is largely based on what they learned from the Ancients. Even the stargates weren't their creation despite what they'd like the galaxy to think."

Isabel narrowed her eyes, turning to face Daniel. "The Ancients?" She asked, slightly pained. "I shouldn't be offended by that."

"You know their languages but you don't know their names?" Sam asked, her eyes narrowing too.

"I know what they called themselves, not what distant onlookers in the future named them." Isabel corrected, picking her pencil back up.

Sam smiled slightly. "So the other language you write in, you don't know what it's called?"

"Nope." Isabel shook her head. "And it doesn't exactly romaise well."

"They're called the Asgard." Daniel explained, though he was clearly amused by the direction the conversation had turned.

"Try saying that in their language." Isabel laughed, moving on to a different part of the schematic. She bit her lip slightly as the silence in the room drew on. "How long do we have to finish this?"

Sam glanced up at Daniel, sharing a silent conversation. Isabel didn't bother looking into their minds, since they had no way of actually knowing what the other person was saying.

"Our best guess that Ba'al will have the ship ready in a few weeks before he uses it to launch an attack." Daneil explained, earning a stern look from Sam. "We have a timeframe, if telling her gets us done quicker we have a better chance of destroying it."

Isabel snorted. "If you wanted to blow the thing up you should have said." She smiled flicking through her notebook to find the right few pages. "If you're strategically placing explosives then these four corridors are your best targets. They surround most of the essential systems, power, engines, life support. They also back onto the largest networks of power, life support and sensory transmissions, if the ship doesn't blow itself up then everyone on board will die pretty quickly. Of course a very big bomb in the power room is another option. The naquadah inside should make a pretty sizeable explosion, but it's a lot harder to gain access to it or any essential areas on the ship. Adjoining corridors are less restricted and should you plant enough explosives the wall won't do anything to contain the damage."

Sam glanced at Daniel, raising her eyebrow at him.

"You're the one that would know if she's right." Daniel raised his hands, taking a step back from the table.

"I mean it's plausible." Sam shrugged. "If the ship doesn't completely blow then we could salvage some of the technology left on board."

"It's almost guaranteed to." Isabel corrected. "Any disruption in the primary command pathways or systems cooling will cause it to explode. It's why there are multiple pathways and subsystems but taking them all down at once will trigger an irreparable overload in all of the undamaged systems."

Sam nodded and walked out of the room, leaving Daniel and Isabel in silence. The airmen seemed to watch her more closely, tensing more when she looked like she was going to move away from her position hunched over the table. While they were only doing their jobs, they seemed overly suspicious. Daniel on the other hand was far too complacent in her presence. She didn't mean him any harm, quite the opposite but he was acting far too calm about the situation. She did know Goa'uld and the schematics to a weapon that one of their enemies hadn't even finished building, Teal'c had made a natural assumption, though it wasn't accurate. At least she didn't think it was.

"So, how long have you been speaking these languages?" Daniel asked, moving to the opposite side of the table, he leaned forward, slightly blocking the light on the paper in front of them.

Isabel sighed, straightening in her chair to look over at him. "I've known Asgard the longest, maybe 12 years at his point. It took longer to get a full understanding of how it connected with English but once I got the hang of it Alteran was easier to comprehend."

"How old were you when that happened?" Daniel asked, sitting down. He didn't break eye contact while he did."

"Eight." Isabel shrugged, nodding to herself. "It freaked out a lot of people. The matrons passed it off as a seizure to the other kids."

"Matrons?" Daniel pried, tilting his head to the side. "When did you lose your parents?"

"I didn't." Isabel frowned, avoiding Daniel's gaze. She resumed working on the schematic, dragging one of Daniel's notebooks closer. "I never had parents."

"Then how did you get into college? Beyond scholarships. Fast tracking your undergrads is an expensive process."

"Whoever left me at the orphanage left me with some letters, and a savings account for me to be able to go to any college I wanted." Isabel shrugged. "I hired a private investigator during my first year to find out who set it up but he couldn't find anything. Someone really didn't want me to know what was going on. By that point, I was well into my first undergrad and more interested in figuring out the minutiae of the design's I'd been drawing."

"So even after you learned the languages you couldn't figure it out." Daniel nodded slowly, flicking through her notebook.

"It took me quite a few years to get a handle on Asgard and maybe a few months for Alteran. I was fifteen maybe. Goa'uld is much more recent and we both know that I definitely don't understand it as fully as I would prefer." She spoke, scribbling down a few notations on the schematic before pulling out another sheet of paper to write out the long hand. "I only really understand all of this because of what I know from the Alterans. I doubt I'd actually be able to hold a conversation in Goa'uld for a while yet."

"Really?" Daniel asked, raising his eyebrow with a smile. "Because we've been speaking Goa'uld since Colonel Carter left."

Isabel snapped her gaze up to Daniel, narrowing her eyes. "That's not possible. It should take me weeks to understand."

"Apparently not." Daniel shrugged, glancing over at the airmen who had their weapons ready to aim. "Everything's fine, I'm just testing her." He waved them down, keeping his gaze on them until they returned to their positions at the door.

"You know I won't appreciate it if you get me shot." Isabel threw Daniel a pointed look before returning to continue her work in silence. She mostly nodded along as Daniel pointed out some of the finer details in constructing Goa'uld properly in its many written forms, though Isabel appeared to know all of them. Her original notes switched in and out of several dialects, though there was no pattern in where they were used.

When Daniel announced that he'd go and get them lunch, Isabel watched him leave, all too worried about how the airmen would handle her alone. They didn't raise their weapons again but they did appear to tense when Isabel muttered to herself as she reread some of her notes. She assumed that she'd switched into Goa'uld again. It was always the biggest problem when it came to her suddenly learning another language, it took a while to be able to discern between them. She just hoped that there wasn't anything else kicking about inside her head. Three times was more than enough for her.


	6. Chapter 6

Weeks passed and Isabel continued working on the schematics, mostly falling asleep for short bursts. Zac had been released within the first few days, after signing an NDA to satisfy the skeptics among the air force, though he didn't really know anything about the SGC specifically. Isabel hadn't been allowed to see him, they were probably worried that she'd let something slip that she shouldn't and aggravate the situation. She wasn't going to say anything sensitive to him. She just wished she could have apologised for dragging him into the mess, though not purposefully. She knew he'd probably wait around for a few days and if she didn't call then she was probably locked up somewhere never to see the light of day again. Which was exactly what things were starting to feel like.

Her one respite from the concrete walls and stacks of paper was the short few seconds she'd seen Ryan walking down the hall. She was being moved to a holding room to sleep for the night and she'd seen him walking past as the elevator stopped on a floor mid way through the journey. He didn't look at her, didn't think of her, but she'd seen him and it was enough to lift her spirits.

Daniel had tried to ask about Ryan a few times. How did they meet? Did she know he was part of the SGC? Was it really the hologram in the lecture that spurred her to tell him the truth? She'd ignored all of the questions, deflecting and outright refusing where she could. It was a sensitive topic still. She hadn't spoken to him since she'd driven him to her apartment and didn't feel like spilling all the details on what might be a long dead relationship.

Isabel of course kept her other talents a secret from those in the SGC, though it was always tempting to tease Daniel or Sam whenever they got lost in thought. She had a few times, but made sure to be as vague and innocent about it as possible. There were only so many times a person could make jabs about a Colonel's superior officer before things started to click and all her secrets would get dragged out of the closet. She felt enough of a science experiment as it was.

There had become a routine to her new life as the second week of working rolled by. She would wake every morning in her guarded room, was marched to the locker room for a shower and change of clothes before being escorted to the room dedicated to their research. She'd found wearing BDUs alien at first, then uncomfortable and finally downright strange before Sam had suggested that she wear the trousers and boots with just one of the black shirts instead of a jacket or button up. The tight long sleeves were a small comfort as Isabel pulled them up and over her hands, usually when she was thinking though mostly because it got chilly in the underground base sometimes and it helped to keep her fingers from freezing.

Meals were all brought to the room, Sam and Daniel would usually show up as the food did, and both insisted they be called Sam and Daniel after Isabel had explained the sheer discomfort of being called Miss Hastings. There was never a shortage of pens or pencils, paper was stacked high in a box in the corner of the room and the cameras that watched her every move became nothing more than blinking red light in her peripheral vision.

Aside from Sam and Daniel, Isabel hadn't had much contact with other people. The guards that rotated shifts watching her were quiet, though in the evenings they would allow her to make small talk in the elevator and respond in their own vague ways. Strange as it was she was beginning to enjoy her time as a prisoner of the US Government, though mostly because Sam and Daniel had answers to questions she'd had since childhood and they were willing to give them to her, within reason of course.

It was the end of her second week in confinement that marked any substantial change. They'd finished piecing together her notes into coherent schematics, they'd been able to fully plan a mission, second by second, that would reduce the Ha'tak in question to a very expensive campfire, and they'd begun to trust that she really wasn't there to kill them all. Her guards went from carrying automatic rifles to zat'nik'tels, Daniel met Isabel at her door when her guards woke her up and after showering and dressing she wasn't walked to the barren room she'd grown accustomed to but to a briefing room with what looked like an overly large table in the centre. There were blast doors over one wall and a smattering of people gathered in the room. Instead of trying to introduce herself to people she was sure wouldn't care, she asked Daniel where she should sit and waited there patiently for whatever was happening to begin.

Isabel sifted through the surface thoughts of the people in the room, most of it usual morning greetings and speculation of the briefing topic, though there were a few smatterings of conversation that touched on her presence. Some of them didn't know who she was, others wondered why their prisoner was up and about and others simply commented that it was strange seeing someone in base uniform with their hair down.

'_Come on, it'll be fine. There's nothing to worry about. She's just here to provide technical support and then she'll be out of your hair.'_

Isabel snapped her head up, immediately running her hands over the back of her neck. Sat directly across from her was Ryan, or possibly Lieutenant Langley if things between them stayed frosty. They stared at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to say in the situation. Daniel coughed beside them, glancing between the pair with a smirk. Isabel did her best not to roll her eyes at him.

"I'm sorry." She spoke, surprising Ryan from his staring. "For everything."

Ryan smiled a little. "It's not completely your fault. I doubt you'd have wanted this."

"I didn't." Isabel shook her head. "Not at first. By this point I don't know what it would be like if I'd been different."

Ryan frowned and looked down at the table. "I think about it all the time."

Isabel leaned forward slightly, glancing about the table to be sure she wasn't attracting unwanted attention to them. "That's why I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry you've been treated like a mass murderer." Ryan offered an olive branch to her and Isabel wanted to immediately clutch at it. "I could have been a lot better about it. Made sure they treated you properly, you turned yourself in."

Isabel knew how she was smiling at him, she did it often enough over the last few years. She also knew in the back of her mind that she shouldn't be looking at him like that, but when he smiled back in his same way her heart leapt a little. She could hope, she could also still have a reasonable doubt that things would go back to how they were, but there was some hope there, and she needed it.

Before she could respond everyone suddenly stood, Isabel did too but was rather more confused about why. A somewhat familiar face walked into the room, though Isabel had never met him personally she had seen him in Sam's thoughts a time or fifteen.

General Jack O'Neill, the object of her obsession and co conspirator in the torrid affair they'd been engaged in over the last few months. It must have been the lack of interest in upholding the Air Force rules that contributed to Isabel's thinking that it was simply too romantic. The sheer number of times they must have saved each other's lives and not done anything about the sexual tension was a testament to how well Sam had been handling the whole thing. Even as he began the briefing Sam was the pinnacle of professional, nobody suspected a thing. Actually that wasn't true, everybody thought there was some feeling or care there, but nobody knew just how close the two were.

With a wave of the general's hand, everyone sat and Isabel scrambled to follow as quickly and unnoticeably as possible. He appraised Isabel for a moment, apparently disappointed by how 'normal' she seemed, as if there were anything normal about what was happening.

"SG6, what did you get from the last recon mission?" Jack asked, turning to one of the men on Ryan's side of the table, Major Barnes.

"The mothership is nearing the end of construction." Barnes reported, nodding sharply as he started to speak. "The hull is almost complete and from what little we've been able to gather from the Jaffa in his command they've already finished assembling all of the primary systems." He glanced around the room ominously. "I'd say it's a matter of days before it's finished."

"Langley, you said you went in during the check in." Jack prompted, turning the attention to the far end of the table.

Ryan coughed a little, glancing at Isabel. "Yes Sir, I did. I couldn't get anywhere close to the primary systems but they are filling the cargo bays with weapons. There are also more jaffa coming through the gate every day, there are already several thousand of them and from what I gathered that number isn't going to stop growing."

"So small and quick will be our best option." Jack nodded, glancing around the table. "Barnes, I want your team to brief Teal'c on everything you saw and start planning a route to the ship. Carter, figure out how to get the thing destroyed with two people..."

"With all due respect General, we've already formulated a detailed plan to destroy the ship." Isabel interrupted, almost wishing she could disappear as heads snapped in her direction. Instead she leaned forward, letting her wounded ego fuel her determination. "Colonel Carter and myself have found multiple ways to cripple the ship if not completely destroy it. I understand wanting as small a team as possible going in but the ship is too big for them to split up, especially for one of them to plant two of the explosives. Eight men is the smallest you can get before the risks start vastly outweighing any potential reward."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Isabel. "I'm still on the fence about how reliable your information is, and how accurate." He laughed a little to himself before "Come to think of it you could just be a Goa'uld plant who's very good at staying under the radar."

"If you really doubted where my loyalties are then you wouldn't have invited me to this briefing." Isabel countered, raising her own eyebrow. "Sending in SG1 alone will be signing off on a suicide mission."

Minds were much easier to get a grasp on when the person thinking with them was angry, and for Jack O'Neill anything that threatened Sam made him angry. She hadn't actually made a threat of course, but it was close enough to send his thoughts into disarray. She leafed through what little he pulled to the surface, somewhat surprised by the sheer number of close calls they'd had on missions just like this one. What caught Isabel was the image that kept popping up in his head. They'd been separated from each other, Sam was most likely going to die and she was begging him to leave. She didn't stay on the image long enough to find out what exactly had happened but it was clear that Sam didn't die and the emotional leverage in the image was enough without further details. As he tried to push the image away Isabel pulled it back, forcing him to live through the memory again.

"Let's contact some allies, see if they want to join us on this one." Jack announced, to the table's collective surprise. "Get both of your teams ready to go at a moments notice, I want this done as quick as possible." He directed his attention to Isabel, his expression hard. "You," he pointed at her "my office." He stood and took one last look across the faces in the room. "Dismissed."

The airmen walked Isabel to the General's office, waiting with her outside while he spoke to someone else inside, though he was simply giving the call order for the technicians downstairs. He took a seat behind his desk and waved a hand at the airmen to walk her inside, which Isabel did, though hesitantly. When she sat down the airmen left, waiting outside the door for what could be a very bad conversation for her.

"What did you do to my head?" Jack asked, leaning back in his chair. Isabel hadn't been expecting that to be the topic, given she hadn't heard anything about it since she'd changed his mind, or rather persuaded him to do it himself.

"I don't know what you mean." Isabel shook her head, though she knew her expression would give her away, she'd always had a terrible poker face. She didn't need to hear what he was thinking to know she was done for.

"Let's not try to play dumb." He frowned, leaning forward on the desk. "I've had aliens poking around in my head before, I know what it feels like."

"I didn't _do_ anything to your head." Isabel shook her head again. "I encouraged it to think about something a while longer."

Jack picked up a pen, waving it her direction. "Now, I call that doing something."

"If you're worried about what I saw, it was only what you were thinking." Isabel sat as straight as she could in the chair, determined not to crack under his glare. "I can't make you think things you don't want to and I certainly can't put memories in your head that don't already belong there."

"Now I know that's very possible." Jack argued, still gesturing with his pen at her. "It's happened before. I didn't enjoy it."

Isabel sighed. "I'm not talking about the science of the mind, I'm talking about my capabilities and that isn't one of them."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you." He dropped the pen to his desk and picked up his phone.

Isabel leaned forward and caught his hand before he could bring the phone to his ear. She didn't bother to ask who he was calling or why, she already knew. He wanted a doctor to run whatever tests she could on Isabel, and then he wanted to throw her back into a holding room and make sure she never left it.

"Please don't." She said quietly, already panicking slightly. "I know you didn't reduce other people to lab rats."

Jack frowned, putting the phone back and Isabel let go of his wrist. "Keep out of my head and maybe I won't make you one."

"Minds aren't impenetrable bubbles I have to bust my way into." Isabel slumped back in the chair, crossing her arms loosely over her chest. "Surface thoughts are loud, it's like trying not to listen to the argument your neighbors are having because they're yelling in their backyard and your kitchen window is open."

"Specific." Jack smiled, cocking his head slightly. "And off the point. I still want Dr Fraiser to take a look at you."

"Fine." Isabel shrugged. "Can I give you a piece of advice?"

"Are you going to tell me anyway?" Jack asked with a smirk.

"Don't force yourself into making bad decisions." Isabel smiled lightly. "Being concerned about Sam's safety isn't a bad thing. It's also not a reason to abandon any logic you may have in favour of overcompensating for it. You spent 7 years holding that balance, you can do it now."

Jack shook his head, picking the phone back up. "Get the hell to the infirmary kid."


	7. Chapter 7

Dr Fraiser was not unlike a slave driver, though her tone was much nicer than one would expect. She had Isabel under her ever watchful gaze for three hours, poking and prodding her, doing test upon test until she was satisfied that she in fact had used every piece of equipment in the SGC. Janet laughed when Isabel said as much. It may have been an exaggeration, but not by much.

"You have done literally every exam on me I can think of, you have taken samples of bodily fluids I don't even want to think about, please say we're done." Isabel pouted, her legs swinging off the edge of the bed she'd been deposited on.

Janet, instead of allowing her to leave, began to attach countless wires and leads to Isabel, forcing her to sit back against the pillows on the bed. "You're going to stay here until I say you can leave and we're going to monitor how you do." She scribbled down a few things on her clipboard before smiling back up to Isabel. "Then you're going in for an MRI."

Isabel's eyes widened a little. "I don't do well in closed spaces."

Janet's smile softened a little. "We can give you a sedative to help you relax."

Isabel nodded, taking in ragged breaths. She used to love small spaces, the only privacy you could really get in an orphanage were the places you could hide. Her safe space had been a small cupboard in the attic, barely big enough to fit her once she turned eight, bus she squeezed inside whenever she wanted to be alone, especially if she didn't want one of the matrons following her and asking questions like "what's wrong" and "do you want to talk about it." The matrons were kind, lovely, but they were also being paid to be.

She'd been about to turn nine the last time she'd sat in the cupboard and she'd been sent back from a foster home, apparently she wasn't a good fit. One of the other kids, he was maybe 10 or 11, had been in the same home and he'd loved the parents, their kids and their dog, but they'd wanted a girl and she'd been sent in his place. He followed Isabel when she got back, antagonising her at every opportunity he could. When he saw Isabel crawling into the attic cupboard, he locked her inside, piling boxes in front of the door so that she couldn't escape. The only light in the cupboard was what little slipped in through the crack in the door so when it was covered she was in total darkness, unable to move. She screamed at first, begging to be let out, but nobody came and she got tired of screaming so she cried instead, slamming her hands against the door until she couldn't anymore. When the matrons finally found her they promised they'd find who locked her in, said they'd be punished, but they never did get anyone to confess so the mystery went unsolved. At least until they boy taunted Isabel with it, promising to lock her in again if she told anyone, or if she went to another home he wanted, or just if he felt like it.

Isabel wiped her eyes, drying her hands on the sheets of the bed. She hated thinking about her childhood, especially the early years. She never talked about it to anyone, preferring to leave it as far in the past as she could. Leaving for UCLA at 17 was the best thing that had happened to her. She'd been moved into the custody of a temporary foster family while she was there and they'd been nice. The mother was a baker, loved having help around the house and the father had immigrated from Mexico some thirty years back when he was a teenager. They'd been married since they left high school and he worked as a spanish teacher at a local high school. Maria was their daughter, the same age as Isabel. They'd made plans to move in together once Maria left high school and her parents had let Isabel stay the extra few months until they found a place. They were the closest thing to family she'd experienced and were usually part of the lie she told when people asked about her. "The Rios Arenas took me in. They're great people. I couldn't have asked for anyone better." It wasn't exactly a lie, but she also didn't tell them that it had happened only a few years ago.

Isabel mostly people watched as the minutes ticked away, though there weren't many people to watch as the infirmary was empty. She briefly wondered if they'd cleared out any injured because of her but quickly dismissed the idea. They wouldn't risk recoveries just to keep her isolated, she hoped. Ryan walked in about ten minutes later, a good few hours having passed since the briefing. He was geared up in black BDUs, tac vest, though he would be weaponless until he actually left. He stopped awkwardly a few beds away, silently asking permission to talk. Isabel nodded.

"We're heading out soon." Ryan said, taking a seat next to Isabel. "One of the free Jaffa is coming and once he's here we're gone."

Isabel nodded, pursing her lips a little. "I don't need to tell you to be careful." She smiled.

Ryan smiled too, rolling his eyes. "I kinda missed you saying that."

"I would have said it more if I knew you were doing stuff this crazy."

"So you never looked?" Ryan asked, an eyebrow raised. "You and your insatiable curiosity, you weren't tempted?"

"Tempted, yes. But no." Isabel shook her head, glancing down awkwardly. "Not your secrets to tell. We can talk about it when you get back, if I'm still here."

"It's a date."

They were looking at each other, more staring. Ryan was looking at her in that way she knew she'd looked at him during the briefing, that wide eyed drifting way they always used to. She knew she was looking at him the same way.

"Time to go Lieutenant." A voice announced from the other end of the infirmary, Major Barnes. "Mothership's not going to destroy itself."

Ryan stood and Isabel quickly followed, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Be careful." She breathed, a sinking feeling pulling at her stomach.

"Always." Ryan promised, returning the hug. He glanced up at Major Barnes, who was smirking at him and released Isabel. "I'm coming back."

"Good." Isabel smiled, it quickly being replaced with a worried frown as he left the infirmary. She sat back down on the bed, allowing one of the nurses to fuss and shake her head as she replaced one of the leads that had come loose.

When Janet eventually came back, she also returned with some blue pajamas and the orders for Isabel to change into them before she could be sedated,

The machine banged and clicked around her and Isabel screwed her eyes shut, determined not to panic, though that was what the sedative was for. She took long deep breaths, like she did whenever she was struggling to sleep. She managed to blank out the sounds, like she had dipped her head under the water during a bath.

"_We were ready for their arrival as you ordered."_

Isabel didn't recognise the voice, nor did it seem nearby.

"_They were captured at the Chappa'ai and taken to the prisons." _Female, definitely young sounding, though there was a brassiness to it that she couldn't quite clear out.

"_Good. Bring their leader to me for questioning." _A second voice, male. He had the same brassy voice too.

There were flashes in her vision, gold hieroglyphs, a man sat on a throne, his eyes glowing. Men in armour guarding a cell containing SG1 and SG6, weaponless and injured. There was also the face of a woman, with what looked like moss in her hair, a serene smile on her face.

"_It will be done my lord." _Isabel was dragged into the woman's mind as she walked away from the man on the throne. _"Follow my mind, join me here." _The brassiness was gone from the woman's voice, she wasn't even speaking. _"There isn't much time." _

Isabel's mind burned, like it did before an episode. She could feel her body shaking, thrashing back and forth on the table, but her mind was still with the woman, being held there.

As quickly as she was pulled into the woman's mind she was thrown from it and back to her own, bolting upright as Janet and a nurse held her arms. "I need my clothes." She announced, springing to her feet.

"You need rest." Janet protested, trying to block Isabel's path from the door. "What we saw in those images is extremely worrying, and unexplainable. You are going nowhere."

Isabel spotted her clothes in the next room, folded neatly on a chair. She pushed past Janet and began pulling them on, barely noticing the airman that hastily turned their backs and darted from the room. "I need to see General O'Neill immediately. I don't even know what happened just then but he needs to hear it."

"That can wait." Janet said sternly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You were administered a sedative less than an hour ago, that alone is reason for me to have you back in my infirmary."

"No offense doc but it didn't do all that much." Isabel rolled her eyes, sitting down on the chair to pull on her boots. "And you aren't stopping me going anywhere." She swept out of the room, the airmen hot on her heels as they made to block her from the elevator at the end of the hall. "The General's office gentlemen." She smiled to them. "I trust you'll wait to shoot me until after we get there."

They glanced at each other and over Isabel's shoulder at Janet before nodding and letting Isabel onto the elevator. As the doors closed, she could see Janet angrily muttering at the nurse, rushing back into the observation room. As the doors opened on level 27, two more airmen joined Isabel, boxing her in as they walked her to the General's office.

"Dr Fraiser says you should be in the infirmary, not my office." Jack spoke as she walked into the office. "Care to explain why..."

"They didn't make it to the Ha'tak." Isabel cut him off, her expression stern. "There were jaffa waiting on the other side for an ambush. They're currently being held somewhere on that planet and Colonel Carter is being interrogated as we speak."

"How the hell would you know that?" Jack asked, his expression a mirror of her own.

"How do I know about anything?" Isabel answered, shrugging slightly. "I'm requesting permission to go to the planet, get them back and finish their mission."

"Denied." Jack said quickly, standing from his chair. "You have no training and no accurate intelligence about what is happening on another damn planet. They're due back in two hours, if they don't we can have a chat."

"And if someone is killed between now and then?" Isabel asked, noting the dark flicker in the General's expression.

"Give me something concrete, credible." Jack emphasised, sitting back down in his chair.

"They went to the planet with another Jaffa." Isabel began. "Ryan told me that much but he didn't tell me that his name is Bra'tac of Chulak, that he and Teal'c are traitors to the Goa'uld and the only reason they haven't all been killed yet is because Ba'al wants to know how we knew about the ship."

"You could have fished that out of anyone's head." Jack countered, raising his hand. "We wait until the deadline, take her back to the infirmary."

"You can wait until then General." Isabel muttered, following her guard out of his office. "But I can't."


	8. Chapter 8

The moment Isabel had been deposited in the infirmary she had begun planning. To the nurses, she just looked like she was sat with her eyes closed, but she was plotting out a path through the SGC, first she'd have to change and get some gear, which would be one of the easier tasks. She could easily sneak her way into the lockers and steal someone's uniform jacket, but getting anything out of the armoury would be a challenge, if needed, she'd forgo that step. Then she'd have to find a computer with access to the dialing program and set it on a timer. She could dig around in the technician's heads a little to figure out how to operate the system but it wouldn't be too hard. The true challenge would be getting to the gate room unnoticed and then through the gate without being shot. If she went missing from the infirmary there would be a manhunt for her, so she would have to find a way to distract the nurses. Cutting the power to the level might be good enough, can't look for someone too well if you can't see.

Isabel jumped from mind to mind, making sure she had a clear image of her path, and a number on how many people were in them. She hadn't been completely truthful with General O'Neill when she said she couldn't make someone think something they didn't want to, because while it was true of their thoughts it wasn't with their sight. She could easily make the airmen guarding the infirmary door continue to see the same empty corridor while she snuck past, but the larger the volume of people the harder it would get. She didn't know the base schedule so she couldn't be sure if any more people would be moving about the base.

Her eyes snapped open as one of the nurses sprinted from the infirmary, a first aid kit thrown over her shoulder. There'd been an accident on level 14, one of the scientists apparently. Perfect timing.

Isabel slipped from her bed, making sure to turn off the monitor before she started removing the wires and leads. She took a breath before sneaking past the two airmen, lifting the ID card from one of their pockets as she went. As she darted out of sight she left their minds, none the wiser of what she'd done. She made it to the elevator with little resistance, but the locker rooms were on level 26 and the corridors wouldn't be empty.

Slipping out of the elevator, Isabel made certain to dodge the technicians moving about the corridors, tucking into small recesses when she could. The locker room was around the corner but there were two officers inside, apparently returned for a mid-survey debrief. They hadn't been there when Isabel had checked. She didn't have time to wait for them to leave however, as there would be a team finishing their briefing in a few minutes. She swore at herself and walked as confidently as she could into the locker room, having already made sure to slip into the two officers' minds. They did head the door clicking open but didn't see Isabel as they glanced at the noise. She moved as silently as she could, pulling out the black uniform inside Sergeant Bell's locker.

"Man, these geologists are breaking me." One of the officers complained, walking over to the locker beside Isabel, pulling it open. Isabel screwed her eyes shut, pushing all of her concentration into remaining unseen. "If I have to haul another crate of mud through the stargate I'm asking the General for a reassignment.

"We're only on science duty because Sands got shot last week." The other man shrugged, moving toward the locker on Isabel's other side. She quickly twisted her body to the side, narrowly avoiding being hit with the door.

"I'd kill for another exploratory gig." The locker on Isabel's right snapped shut and she had to quickly adjust the image she was projecting, her head beginning to pound. "Maybe a nice tropical planet, mid 70s."

The second locker snapped shut and Isabel could hear it ringing in her ears, a pressure starting to build in the front of her head. She'd never had to hold an image this complex for this long, she was feeling light headed.

"I'd much prefer some mountains. Montana has some great snowfall during winter."

"So long as it isn't another farming planet." The officers laughed together, leaving the locker room.

Isabel took a deep breath, finally opening her eyes. There were spots in her vision and she felt nauseous, but for the most part she was fine. She dropped onto the bench and ripped her clothing off with as much speed as she could, pausing when she saw blood on the green trousers. She lifted a hand to her nose and pulled it back, she was bleeding. She used the pant leg and wiped until no more blood streaked across the fabric and threw them into the hamper across the room, quickly dressing. She could hear a team getting off the elevator, she was running out of time. She pulled on Sergeant Bell's jacket and quickly snagged the black cap from inside his locker before snapping it shut. She tucked her hair inside the cap and quickly darted from the locker room, barely avoiding the incoming team.

She allowed herself to lean against the wall in the corridor and take a breath, waiting for her headache to subside a little before continuing to her second destination, the security office. She would have to find the equipment the Jaffa confiscated once she got to the planet. The office she was heading toward was only secondary, and empty, given that a floor below there were four airmen watching all of the screens. She briefly slipped into their minds as she walked into the security office, making certain they didn't see her as she worked.

Isabel began typing, finding the remote dialing program a challenge to write in such a short amount of time. She glanced up at the cameras and saw that the airmen guarding the infirmary were already mobilising a search. They probably kept it quiet so that she wouldn't have time to change her plans. The team in the locker room were gearing up at the armoury down the hall, talking into the radios they were issued.

"We're in the gate room gentlemen." One of the officers spoke, raising his voice. Isabel could just hear it through the door. "We are to immobilise the target and in the event she gets through the gate we are to pursue. P90s are only to be used if absolutely necessary, we're going in non lethal." The voice grew louder and paced straight past the security office, allowing Isabel a chance to relax, though not completely.

She would have to adjust her strategy, the elevators would be swarmed. She could take the stairs down into the briefing room and go from there to the control room. Making it through whatever mass of people would be inside would be a challenge, especially once the gate started dialing, she wouldn't be able to keep out of sight of everyone for long enough to make it to the gate.

Isabel set the dialing program and slipped from the security room, careful to avoid the airmen patrolling the level. She made it to the briefing room relatively quickly, darting behind the desk in the corner as General O'Neill left his office, sprinting down into the control room. Isabel followed behind him, staying low and quiet. There were at least a dozen people in the control room, most of whom she would have to make it past to get out of the door.

"What's wrong with the gate Walter?" Jack asked, stood in the centre of the room.

"Someone's locked out the dialing computer sir." The man in question reported, frantically typing at the computer in front of him.

Isabel took a deep breath and slipped into their minds, moving as quickly as she could to the control console. She found the button to lock the doors in the gate room and angled herself toward the door. She slammed her hand down on the button and broke into a sprint, pulling her mind back to herself. The armed men in the room were startled and didn't start shooting until she was already out of the door. Isabel didn't let up her speed, narrowly making it into the gate room as the blast doors shut. She could see General O'Neill through the glass, shouting orders to the technicians as the airmen filed out to try to follow her. She slipped into the minds of the men in the gate room, walking calmly to where their leader stood as the gate began to dial.

"Colonel Reynolds?" Isabel asked, slipping from his mind. He immediately raised his weapon at her, though he didn't fire. "You have orders to follow me through the gate correct?"

"My primary orders are to subdue you." He corrected, keeping his weapon up.

"I will be stepping through that gate and I will be freeing the people held prisoner on the other side." She stated, taking a few steps back until her feet were on the ramp. "Are you going to shoot me or are you going to let me go?"

"You won't make it through the gate before I pull the trigger." Reynolds kept his zat aimed at her, taking a step forward.

"You didn't see me until I wanted you to Colonel." Isabel spoke, slipping back into his mind. "Could you still shoot me?" She asked, removing herself from his vision.

"The hell did you do that?" He asked, his eyes darting around the room.

The gate flared to life, the vortex barely missing Isabel as the wormhole formed. She paced to the top of the ramp and turned, finally returned her mind to herself. Four weapons aimed at her. She could feel blood dripping from her nose again. "You can follow me if you like Colonel but I will bring them back." She didn't wait for a response and took one final step through the event horison.


End file.
